Enjoy the Journey with Shirley Updyke

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Last Trip Until Next Summer

We made our last trip to Knoebel’s Amusement Park last week. It was our third for the season. No, it wasn’t because we were getting the kids there, our kids are grown up. Maybe its the carney in us that draws us to this place. I didn’t think I had a drop of carney in me until Burl, my husband, built a Carousel Melodies Band Organ. Now, the old “happy music” it produces is to my liking and so are the trips to fairs, carnivals rallies and other events we attend.

Has Burl always been a carney? I didn’t think so! Although he has always loved pipe organs and the challenge of building one. And so he did build one, the Carousel Melodies Band Organ, from scratch to finish, meticulously constructing each of the pipes and all the other mechanisms that go with it. Always a carney? I’m beginning to think so as I watch him with his cane, dressed in a skimmer hat, and red vest and bow tie and it may have all begun with the challenge to build a pipe organ and the summer visits to hear the band organs at Knoebels?